


hanners can't handle the cowboy

by littlelizardtails (dragonfucker)



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-19
Updated: 2017-04-19
Packaged: 2018-10-21 01:27:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,393
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10674867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dragonfucker/pseuds/littlelizardtails
Summary: prompt: awkwardly gay hanzo having feelings for nice soft cowboy and super awkward getting together





	hanners can't handle the cowboy

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Volka](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Volka).



To say that Hanzo was inexperienced at courting wasn't, technically speaking, accurate.

 

Being the heir of the Shimada empire, Hanzo had always been a highly eligible bachelor in his own right; legitimate companies sought the wealth and influence that would come with being tied directly to one of Japan's oldest, wealthiest, and most influential clans, while those who knew the weight of the Shimada-gumi's name in the criminal underworld sought the future scion of one of the most powerful organized crime rings in the world.He had known many suitors,  _ been _ a suitor on occasion when there was something to be gained for the clan. He had flirted, played the occasional coy game, and (despite what his younger brother might claim) had even taken a lover or two. He was no blushing virgin, no shy flower, not remotely delicate in any imaginable way.

 

So why the hell did Jesse McCree leave him so flustered and floundering?

 

He supposed it might be in part because McCree was so unlike anyone else Hanzo had ever dealt with before. They were from completely different cultures, for starters, and even within those cultures, they were from differing social strata—Hanzo having lived his entire life at the top of the socio-economic ladder, while McCree had seemingly come out of the dust of New Mexico with nothing to his name but his skill, his gun, and his endearing, maddening confidence. Hanzo's past relationships had all fit a certain mold; while each had been  a unique person that Hanzo remembered with varying degrees of fondness or regret, they had all known and played by the same set of rules. Always there had been expectations of what either of them had to gain, every interaction measured and planned and thought-out, a dance of politics thinly veiling itself as romance. There had been exceptions, those whom Hanzo had sought solely because he wanted to, because it pleased him to; hell, once or twice it had even been under false names, freeing him completely from the nagging nuisance thought of what his partner's angles might be. Yet those had been only casual because he had known (and if his partners knew who he was, then they had known as well) that such relationships could never become anything more for the eldest son of the head of the Shimada clan.

 

And yet, things had changed so much. Now, he was no more the heir of a great empire, but only a man--an assassin with nothing to his name but his skills and his bow, playing at being a hero because the ghost of his greatest mistake had asked him to. And here he was, alongside McCree, a man who he would have once seen himself so far above, and yet now...

 

McCree had understood him. Not immediately, no--they had watched each other as wary strangers when Genji had first introduced them—but he had to admit, the familiarity had been there even then. Jesse's training in Blackwatch had made him dangerous in a way Hanzo couldn't help but recognize, even if it was not quite the same as the Shimada's keen edge, and his life as a wandering mercenary since the fall of Overwatch had made him jaded and withdrawn. Oh, it wasn't as obvious as it was with Hanzo, who spurned companionship with aggressiveness and sharp words and an almost criminally serious demeanor. Jesse still gave lazy smiles and easy conversation, yet he sought his peace and quiet away from the others, and spending too many hours surrounded by the boundless energy of personalities like Oxton and Song visibly strained him. It was something Hanzo had sympathized with, enough that when the gunslinger had first stumbled into the target range while the archer was already using it, Hanzo had graciously (if awkwardly) allowed him to join him in practice.

 

It was a tentative olive branch, that Jesse had taken with equally apparent reservations, but it had been offered and accepted all the same, and over time spent training, fighting, and eating side-by-side, over team dinners and sleepless nights haunted by shadows neither would name, they had slowly learned just how much they'd had in common. Jesse's friendly nature had eased Hanzo's wariness, and allowed the man's sharp wit to show through in turn, and before long the two had become something like friends.

 

Genji had been nothing short of insufferable in pointing out how good it was for him to have a friend, but despite his annoyance, Hanzo couldn't find it in himself to be truly angry.

 

His current predicament was not caused by friendship, however—or at least, that alone wasn't the problem. As the two had become closer, and Hanzo had learned more and more about Jesse, he'd found his fondness for the ridiculous cowboy growing. The belt buckle was a surprisingly good metric by which he could mark the time in which his feelings had evolved; when they'd first met, it had been a gaudy eyesore that had disgusted Hanzo. After two months, it still made Hanzo roll his eyes, yet it was so intrinsically  _ Jesse _ he could no longer hate it. By the end of their first year as teammates, Hanzo had caught himself admiring the flashy lettering with fond amusement one evening when Jesse had sprawled out on the rec room couch and put it on easy display.

 

It was around that same moment when Hanzo realized he might have a bit of a problem.

 

Jesse was unlike anyone Hanzo had ever courted before. Different culture, different background, yes, but more than that, Jesse was... _ special _ . He made warmth bloom in his chest, made his stomach flip and leap like a restless koi with nerves of anticipation when they were alone together. No past lover had ever made him feel like this.

 

Which just made the anxiety of trying to figure out what to do next that much worse.

 

He knew that Overwatch in the past had not had any significant ban against fraternizing with teammates, beyond the obvious rules meant to protect underlings from being taken advantage of by higher-ranked commanding officers. The current iteration of the organization, lacking UN influence and any sort of explicit chain of command beyond Winston stating who was leading a particular team on a particular mission, was even more lax. He also had no reason to believe that Jesse himself would respond negatively if Hanzo were to, for example, attempt to flirt with him. Hell, some of the things Jesse said to Hanzo could probably be mistaken for flirting, if one didn't already know Jesse had a habit of being overly familiar with anyone he was friendly with. Hanzo almost wished he would flirt with him for real. No, not almost, he  _ did _ wish it, most pointedly when Jesse was busy flirting with someone else like a waitress or a bartender at any particular establishment they chanced for a lackadaisical meal, usually leaving a taste like burned rice cakes on Hanzo's tongue regardless of what they had eaten.

 

He wanted, oh, how he wanted, but the sheer weight of his own longing dragged with it an equally vast fear of rejection. Sure, there was no reason to think Jesse would spurn him, but neither was there any reason to think he would return Hanzo's affections. Jesse seemed as uncatchable and untameable as the desert wind, and just as likely to scorch Hanzo; when he flirted, it was idle, mere passing fancies, so very fleeting, and Hanzo's desires were for so much more than casual pleasure.

 

It seemed foolish to expect Jesse would want the same as him, but his heart, it seemed, was full of foolishness. Hanzo did the only thing he could do—he swallowed back his emotions, and summoned forth the willpower to put on the kind of act he once had as the heir of the Shimada-gumi, this time dancing around his own feelings to maintain his friendship with Jesse without accidentally revealing too much of his own stubborn heart.

 

When the opportunity presented itself to indulge his longing without consequence, however, his willpower wasn't quite strong enough to resist it.

 

He would never admit that the idea was probably the lingering result of some insipid romantic comedy Genji, Hana, and Zenyatta had dragged him into watching with them a week before Valentine's Day, but the idea stayed with him nonetheless. The plot had involved a secret admirer, sending anonymous gifts to woo their beloved. Given the nature of what they did for a living, Hanzo rather doubted a committed 'secret admirer' would make Jesse's heartbeat flutter the way it did the main character of the movie; more likely the cowboy would become paranoid and be on the lookout for poison or sabotage (that was how Hanzo imagined he himself would respond if such were to happen to him, at least). But at the same time...leaving gifts for McCree seemed like such a simple, easy way to finally express his affection for the man. No need for flowery notes or poetry. And if Jesse feared poison, well, the base provided ample ways to prove that a box of chocolates was perfectly safe to eat...though he admittedly wasn't sure how they'd taste after such testing.

 

He'd hesitated still on whether or not to actually do it, until he found the perfect chocolates to give only the day before Valentine's: chocolate-covered Jalapeno peppers. He actually had to do a double-take when he passed by the display in the store window, at first mistaking them for more common strawberries—but no, the sign clearly stated that they were peppers 'bathed in Belgian chocolate.' The ones on the display plate lying in a confusingly appealing rainbow of shades ranging from white chocolate, to milk, to dark.

 

Jesse thoroughly enjoyed food with 'a kick,' as he put it. Chocolate-covered peppers seemed like the exact sort of thing he'd enjoy on a holiday like Valentine's.

 

Hanzo only hesitated a moment before stepping inside the storefront to purchase a box of the chocolates. The entire trip back to base, spent in the passenger seat while Reinhardt sang along with David Hasselhoff on the radio, saw Hanzo staring at the window as he tried to reassure himself that there was little risk of this going terribly wrong. They were, after all, just a box of novelty chocolates; if they were pricy, it was only because of their unusual ingredients. It wasn't as if he were making homemade chocolates for Jesse. Hell, Dr. Ziegler would probably shake her head and tut that the chocolate the peppers were coated in wasn't even Swiss!

 

No, in all likelihood, Jesse would find the chocolates and take them to be a prank, or perhaps even a challenge. A rather silly one at that, given how it was common knowledge that Jesse liked spicy food as much as he did, but the point remained—there was little chance that Jesse would find a box of chocolate-covered Jalapenos and think that someone on base was pining for him.

 

No, the gift was harmless. Sighing, Hanzo held the bag the box was hidden in just a little bit closer to his side, and focused instead on how he was going to make sure the cowboy found them without suspecting who they were from.

 

 

* * *

 

 

When Jesse spotted the box outside his door, for a moment, all he could do was stop and stare dumbly at it, blinking. He knew what day it was—he knew what the pink card lying on top of the box, obscuring its label, likely meant.

 

A Valentine. For  _ him _ .

 

Well wasn't that a kicker?

 

Chocolates and other gifts had been exchanging hands all day, so this was hardly a surprise. Angela had passed out those Swiss chocolates she was always on about, and despite his disbelief that it could really be all that much better than your average Hershey bar, even Jesse had to admit they were pretty damn good. Genji had given out chocolates as well, though with his own playful flair—the ones he'd found came in the most amusing variety of shapes, mostly characters from popular cartoons and videogames, accompanied by humorous cards to boot (“I'd like to ROPE you for my Valentine, pardner” had nearly made Jesse inhale the pony-shaped chocolate he'd just bitten into). Hana had handed out chocolates along with a little memo on Korean tradition, informing everyone that she expected three times as much chocolate in return exactly one month from now on White day; Lena had returned from a date in King's Row bearing enough chocolates for everyone on base to have a fistful, courtesy of Emily. Even those who didn't normally celebrate the 14 th of February joined in; Ana, Jesse knew, celebrated the Egyptian version of Valentine's Day in November, but still she had cups of hot chocolate with little heart-shaped marshmallows ready for everyone when they woke up that morning, and Lucio, who had grown up with a similar holiday in June, had been delighted to get into the spirit of things and bring some delicious brigadeiros from home for the others to enjoy. It was perhaps a bit silly, but they knew a little too well just how dark and serious things could get, particularly in their line of work. The chance to take a moment to simply enjoy a special day, and share it with each other, was something nobody wanted to pass up.

 

Still, the box left outside the door to his quarters was...puzzling, to say the least. An entire box? Left outside his room instead of given to him in person? He almost wondered if it had been a mistake, but as he finally stepped closer and crouched down to pick it up, examining the card revealed a very basic 'Happy Valentine's Day' message, but with his name—or at least, his last name, 'McCree' –written beneath the sentiment in careful, deliberate script.

 

He wanted to say he recognized the handwriting, but...it wasn't a signature. Just very basic, printed letters, almost unusually lacking. Jesse's brow furrowed, his confusion only increasing. What was going on here?

 

Then he turned to look at the box in his other hand, and his eyebrows almost disappeared into his hairline entirely.

 

Who the  _ hell _ had gotten him an _entire box_ of chocolate-covered Jalapenos?

**Author's Note:**

> did i do it right


End file.
